Oxygen in Use, No Smoking

The on and off clicking of the breathing machine reassures me as I hurry down the darkened hospital corridor at 10 pm. "Mama's not dead," I tell myself.

I see the darkened visitors' lounge at the end of the hall. In my mind I see Daddy, asking Dr. Porth, "What is the name of her disease?" "Emphysema," she replies. Daddy takes a card from his suit pocket and asks her to spell it. "What was it called in the old days?" he asks. "The grippe," Dr. Porth answers.

The sign on the door, "Oxygen in Use, No Smoking," identifies Mama's room. Cautiously, I push open the slightly ajar door and slip into Mama's room, dreading to see her near-death condition.

The nurse turns from the one light in the room, startled. She addresses me as if I were an intruder. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Crook's daughter, Lois. I've come to see Mama," I say in a wobbly voice.

"Oh, you're the one from Florida?"

"No, Savannah." Being confused with Mary makes me feel at home in these morbid surroundings. When we were little, Mama called me "Mary, Lois" so often that Ann Martin, who lived up the street, thought my name was "Mary-Lois."

"Where's Florence?" I ask. My eldest sister called me this afternoon to come if I wanted to see Mama before she died.

"She went to settle the bill and smoke a cigarette," the nurse replies. "This has been a long ordeal for your sister."

"The bill?" I question, my wonder of the surreal activities accompanying death increasing since Florence's phone call.

"Dr. Brauner has been by. He said this is definitely your Mother's last night. He's surprised she's hung on so long."

"Mama's good at hanging on," I say to myself. Three years ago, before Daddy died, she was brought to the Emergency Room to get oxygen. The pathologist in charge of the lab thought he was analyzing the blood of a dead person. When another blood sample was sent to him, he became curious, "How can she live with such a high amount of carbon monoxide in her blood?"

He visited her often after she left the Emergency Room to come to this floor in Piedmont Hospital to begin her 60-day recovery. That's when Mama called her morning nurse, "Just One Step More" for her encouragement.

"It's her will to live," the pathologist said after several visits. "That, combined with the fact that her body fought off so many serious diseases in her childhood."

At nine years old she came in from riding a neighbor's horse to lie down on the hall sofa, burning with typhoid fever. She never remembered calling for her oldest and favorite brother Bill, who was away at Business College. But, weeks later, when she opened her eyes, he was by her bed, looking down at her. "Bill, why are you here?" she asked. "Florence, you asked for me. They said you were dying," he replied. She smiled, closed her eyes and slept, holding his hand.

"How is Mama?" I move toward her bed. The machine continues its rhythmic clicking, sending oxygen into her throat. Tubes run into her arms and bruises map where needles have been. She lies very still.

"Her kidneys have stopped functioning. Her heart is holding out. We all thought her heart would take her because of her family history," the nurse responds. Out of seven siblings, Mama and one brother lived past age fifty. Mama turned seventy-one this year.

"Is she in pain?" I look at her still form under the hospital cover. Her wonderful high cheekbones and straight nose give her a commanding presence, even with the machine attached at her throat.

"You can talk to her. Her hearing will go last." The nurse picks up Mama's chart.

"Mama, can you hear me? It's Lois." I remember how often my voice is mistaken for Mary's, so I repeat my name. Florence boasts that she is the only one who can tell our voices apart, especially over the phone. When Mary and I are together, our children say we sound like a stereo.

Mama opens her eyes. Her eyes are glassy.

"Can she see?" I ask the nurse.

The nurse looks up from the chart, shakes her head no. "Speak to her. She can hear."

"Mama, I'm glad to see you. I know this is tiring for you. Keep holding on. You're doing good. Mary will be here soon. I love you."

Her eyes close.

Florence flings wide the door, rushes into the room, sees me, then scowls. "Lois, I hope your boys aren't messing up the house. The maid and I have cleaned it for the funeral. She washed and ironed the big linen dinner napkins." As Florence tells me this, she checks drawers for pajamas and puts "Get Well" cards and toilet articles into Mama's suitcase.

Mary gently knocks on the open door. She walks directly to Mama, smiling. "Hello, Mama," she says in her lilting, debutante-forever voice. "We just got here. Laurie said, 'Tell Ba'mama I love her.'"

Mama frowns from the frustration of being too weak to respond. I can tell she understands and appreciates the message of love from her only granddaughter. She sends her love to her as her weary eyes open and close.

The breathing machine's clicking measures the intervals.

"Does this lotion belong to the hospital or to us?" Florence asks as she continues packing.

"That's hers," the nurse replies, moving to Mama's side.

"Will we need the 11 o'clock nurse?" Florence wants to know.

My watch shows 10:15 pm.

"I don't think so," the nurse responds. "It's hard to tell when they are hooked to this machine." The nurse lifts the tube out of Mama's throat.

Mama's eyes open wide in astonishment. Her eyelids drop and her face relaxes. Tension seems to flow out of her body.

"She's dead," I hear the nurse say as she reaches over Mama to turn off the machine.

"Would you give me the sheep's skin that's under her?" Florence asks the nurse. "It was so expensive and hard to find." Florence turns toward Mary and me. We still are at Mama's bedside. "Will you stay here while the nurse and I see about the death certificate?"

We nod yes. Florence and the nurse leave the room.

"It's quiet without the clicking, isn't it?" Mary's voice breaks the silence.

The lump in my throat lets out, "That's right, Mary."